Skyway

Guests travel high above the park on a trip between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. Skyway passes through the Matterhorn for a view of the caverns and ice grottos. The Skyway also provides a breath-taking view of the Submarine Fleet.

The Skyway stations were equiped with a large digital meter to gauge wind speed. It usually flutuated between zero and three knots. If the meter hit twelve knots employees shut the ride down.

For dangerous situations, in the mid-1970s Disneyland installed speakers on the Skyway towers and microphones in the stations. By depressing the "All Ride" switch, operators could give announcements or warnings "from on high." Hosts were to use the device for emergencies only, since upon hearing a deep voice suddenly resounding from the sky, guests typically froze in terror. As such, the device became known as "the God Switch."

The buckets reached a height of 60 feet.

The drive mechanism was in the Fantasyland side with a 35 thousand pound ballast on the Tomorrowland side to keep the cable tight.

Skyway was built by Von Roll Iron Works of Bern Switzerland.

The first gondolas had fiberglass patio chairs bolted in them.

During construction of the New Fantasyland in 1983 the Skyway ran roundtrip only.

"Walt had intended to replace the unreliable Phantom Boats with an attraction similar to high-speed swamp boats. There was even a sign announcing their arrival. They never came to pass, as they were deemed too loud and dangerous. What's interesting is that the original Skyway attraction poster depicts boats similar to those described as a future attraction in the Tomorrowland Lagoon. Timing-wise, this poster would reflect the same period the attraction was being considered. One look at the poster and one can see that the boats depicted are not Phantom Boats". Secret courtesy of Jon S.

Why Did They Close The Skyway?
That is kinda complicated. The reason that Disney gave was it was not very popular and expensive to maintain. A couple of things may or may not have lead to it closing: In April 1994 a guy jumped out and landed in a bush with minor injuries, sued Disney and lost. The Skyway was a popular place for teen boys to spit on guests below. ADA was pushing to make the Skyway wheelchair accessible.

An aerial ride stalled Saturday, leaving about 150 people stranded 40 feet over Disneyland for up to five hours while firefighters worked to rescue them.
The skyway cable cars stopped automatically, apparently after someone in one of the four-passenger gondolas began rocking the car vigorously,

Disneyland spokesman Tim O'Day, hired as a parade performer in 1976 and knowledgeable about virtually every Disneyland detail, is practically the grand marshal of the theme park's rich history, including its integration to motion pictures. The co-author of Disneyland: Then, Now and Forever talked

The Walt Disney Company recently announced that an entirely new land based on the Star Wars universe would be coming to Disneyland, likely in 2019. The 14-acre mini universe will feature two major new rides and other attractions including a restaurant based on the Mos Eisley cantina in the films.

Over 60 years ago, Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California. In the decades since, Walt Disney's original theme park vision has undergone changes both big and small. Rides, attractions, and entire swaths of land have sometimes been overhauled or torn down to make way for modern amusements.
But

Pam Wells has been to Disneyland, she estimates, 50 times in her 43 years. In fact, she's going again this weekend, for her 44th birthday. She can still remember being too excited to sleep the night before a Disneyland outing. And she can list all the places you used to be able to make out and/or

The place is surrounded by a berm, a high barrow of earth, that insulates it from the external world. There is a single gateway where admission is charged. This, the land of Disney, is more secure than ancient Troy. No Trojan horse will get into Disneyland. Guards at the main gate closely

A magician can pull a rabbit out of a hat, he can cut a woman in half, and he can even make a grown man disappear-I've seen it. But I can't say I really believe in magic. That is, I didn't believe in magic until my wife and I recently took our son to Disneyland.
Going to Disneyland is a major

For 40 years, the theme park chose ride operators based on gender-with frilly-frocked females working Storybook Land and macho men in pith helmets wisecracking through the Jungle Cruise.
But last month, the first woman took up oars to help guests paddle canoes around Tom Sawyer Island, and the

When Walt Disney completed the $2,000,000 expansion program at Disneyland this summer, it was estimated by park officials that the capacity had increased by 100,000 rides per day.
Completion of Disneyland"s first expansion program came this past month with the opening of the Rainbow Caverns

[*This article has been edited non-Disneyland Info removed--RLM*]
Disneyland
It's not surprising that the 1955 breakthrough occurred in Los Angeles. It grew out of the resident movie industry's capabilities and the special kind of ingenuity that for years had gone into inventing convincing

Disneyland, the country's first truly big-time theme park, is located 27 miles southeast of Los Angeles in Anaheim. When the park opened in 1955, Walt Disney promised it would get bigger and better. Well, Disneyland is celebrating its 25th birthday this year, with a spectacle of special happenings.

Disneyland gets sued for injuries and deaths all of the time. Believe me, I get that accidents happen, but most of these tourists are simply victims of their own stupidity. Mild disclaimer: a few of these I've read about on only one site, so I'm not entirely sure they happened. Now, let's get down

Disneyland The Happiest Place on Earth turns 55 this summer. Clearly, Walt Disney's dream of creating a family park where parents and children could have fun together is here to stay.
But that's not to say Disneyland hasn't seen its share of changes in 5½ decades. Indeed, one of the biggest

Disneyland's fall schedule moves into October with three new adventures open, a fourth nearing completion special private nighttime parties for major groups and site preparations for a new Tomorrowland
During the fall, the relaxed time to see Disneyland following the summer rush, the "Magic

A recent four-night stay at Disneyland proves that this rich, glorious theme park, celebrating its 50th anniversary from now until 2007, is best enjoyed as a planned excursion, not as a whim.
Begin with Birnbaum's, an indispensable annual paperback that's available for around twelve dollars.

The Scharff family of Spokane, Wash., made a special trip to Disneyland recently to celebrate the birthday of 5-year-old Mason with a ride on the Matterhorn.
So they were disappointed to see the 147-foot-tall attraction covered in scaffolding and closed for repairs until June.
"We came to

Of the millions and millions of phone numbers that have been in use since Alexander Graham Bell (or Antonio Meucci, if you're so inclined) invented the telephone, a handful of numbers have managed to live on despite the passage of time ... and the introduction of more numbers and area codes.

When I read of the battles being waged by soulless egomaniacs for control of the Disney entertainment empire, my mind instinctively retreats to the pre-Beatles 1960s when there was just kindly old Walt and his Wonderful World of Color enchanting my family on a black-and-white TV screen on Sunday

The last time I went to Disneyland I got to drive the jeep in the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ride. Unfortunately, my family disobeyed instructions and looked into the eye of the idol, so we were condemned to a terrifying adventure before finally returning safely to the loading dock.

As Disneyland heads into the future with "Star Wars" land, the park is letting go of some of its past.
Disneyland officials have filed a permit with the city to demolish the Skyway Chalet in Fantasyland, once one of two endpoints for open-air gondolas that floated via cables over the park

1954-Summer Construction gets under way and Disneyland begins to emerge from the surrounding bean fields and orange groves of Anaheim.
1955-July 17 The opening day ceremonies are beamed coast-to-coast in a TV special. One of the hosts: actor Ronald Wilson Reagan.
1956-October Attendance hits

Here's the deal with Disneyland. The two women ahead of me in line were Elizabeth and Lexi, twins fromWinnetka, Ill. Elizabeth is a communications and political science major at the University of Southern California. Lexi is a philosophy major atYale.
They knew the words to ''We Can Fly,'' a

Disneyland, a monument to childhood, is also a test of how well you've grown up. Your first visit is guaranteed to be interesting, just as the first time you drive a car, have sex or spend a night by yourself is filled with wonder. But by the tenth or hundredth time you do it, amazement will elude

Walt Disney's first Fantasyland was designed to give the impression that Sleeping Beauty Castle (with its rockwork turrets and extended walls of stone) was the single permanent structure in the area. Fantasyland's rides and concessions were arranged in the castle courtyard as if part of a traveling

Pirates of the Caribbean was already being built as a walk-through attraction at Disneyland when Walt Disney decided to transform it into a boat ride that would open in 1967. Suddenly, Don Edgren and his engineering crew had to figure out a way to take the expanded ride deeper underground.

When Disneyland throws a party, you know we're gonna be there - and Disneyland After Dark: Throwback Nite was no exception. Disneyland's first event in a forthcoming series of themed nights this year was an ode to the rides, tunes, and thrills of yesteryear, complete with food, music,

If Imagineers David Mumford and Bruce Gordon have gained fame among Disney fans, it may be because they haven't forgotten their roots. Gordon spent his childhood building Disneyland models in his garage and went on to become a show producer on the park's new Autopia. Mumford, meanwhile, filled his

Disneyland was Walt Disney's baby, a dream he nurtured for years which eventually turned into a flat-out obsession ... an obsession that had as many skeptics as it had bank creditors demanding that Disney make good on all the loans he needed to make his pie-in-the-sky come true.
Tomorrow, The

Baby boomers with stardust memories of Disneyland often lament how the park has changed. Gone are the E-tickets, the Rocket to the Moon, the Skyway, the Submarine Voyage, the PeopleMover and the mule rides.
For a misty-eyed ride into that past, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Once upon a time, in the magic realm of California, there was a grown-up heady boy named Walt Disney who set out to create the happiest place on earth. So he went into his counting houses and to his moneylenders, and he collected millions of dollars. Then he ordered his royal artists and carpenters

Disneyland. Like many another native of Los Angeles, I have a vexed relationship with The Happiest Place on Earth.¹ A childhood spent in pure enchantment during every trip to Disneyland gave way to an adulthood plagued with guilty doubts about that special Disney brand of child consumerism and

The wonderful world of make-believe called Disneyland is now two years old, and it continues to delight Westerners by the thousands-small children, teen-agers, adults alike. What's more, it doesn't lose it's luster in a day's visit, nor in two or three. Possibly it never will for a good many

From Glendale Disneyland's new Tomorrowland won't open until May 1998, but in a drab gray and beige industrial building in Glendale the project already is mostly complete.
The building is part of Walt Disney Co.'s Imagineering complex, where ideas are put to paper and then crafted into models of

Disneyland really started more than 20 years ago, when Walt got the idea for an amusement park that grownups as well as children would enjoy.
"I had all my drawing things laid out at home, and I'd work on plans for the park, as a hobby, at night."
At the time, amusement parks were dying all

'The Disneyland Encyclopedia' features entries on popular attractions, trivia and insider secrets.
Like most of us, Chris Strodder vividly remembers his first trip to Disneyland, a journey to the Magical Kingdom from Northern California in the 1960s.
"The overall impression was a

Walt Disney says he will not open branch replicas of Disneyland despite offers from a dozen foreign nations and uncounted requests from this country.
Some organizations have gone so far as to offer complete financing, but Walt has turned them all down.
PERSONAL PROJECT
"Disneyland is

It's no secret that Disneyland is my happy place. It is, therefore, a pretty good bet that you can find me at the Happiest Place on Earth each July 17 celebrating Disneyland's anniversary.
This year, my daughter and I took a detour on our way to Disneyland's 55th anniversary celebration,

For four decades, Renie Bardeau's job was simple: Capture the magic.
If he had been a farmer or chef or bus driver, Bardeau's task would be difficult, because magic in the real world is rare and fleeting.
But Bardeau did not work in the real world. He spent his time at a place where

Eighteen Russian Olympic Games coaches, trainers and officials en route home from Melbourne had the time of their lives at Disneyland Wednesday afternoon.
Visas were waived as was the Russian's inadmissibility to the United States as members of the Communist Party, the U.S .Immigration

Walt Disney has announced a $5,500,000 new building program for his fanatastic Disneyland playground the largest expansion since the fun spot opened in 1955. Disney said the expansion would consist of six projects, including a full scale, monorail the first of its type in the United States; a

Disneyland Park opened its gates for the first time ever on July 17, 1955. Since that notable date in history, Disneyland has grown, expanded, and renovated countless times making it the enticing vacation point that it is today. For some people, however, Disneyland is not just a vacation spot.

Six spectacular new attractions, built at a cost of 5.5 million dollars, are nearing completion at Disneyland, the greatest enlargement of the Anaheim Fairyland of entertainment since its opening in 1955.
Beginning in June, Disneyland visitors from all over the world will race in speedy

The day after Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955, many newspapers had a field day with the myriad of problems the park had, such as gas leaks, failing plumbing and a lack of drinking fountains. Some called it Walt's Folly and more.
But that didn't seem to matter to the public because when the

It was a "Fantasmic!" start for Disneyland in the 1990s, and the decade ended with a new Tomorrowland and the disappearance of the parking lot.
1990-92
Not much happened for the first two years in terms of changes or additions of new attractions until 1992. Mission to Mars had its last

The new century started out with few changes inside Disneyland, as the company was focused on big changes outside the park, but things would liven up as the century progressed.
2000
Parking at Disneyland changed with the opening of the Mickey & Friends parking structure on the land that

During the rush of getting the Park constructed, "Tomorrowland" was the last land finished. Budget cuts didn't allow all of its attractions to be opened that first day. One of those cuts was to use the "Nautilus" sets from "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" as a walk-through. When it closed in 1966,

Disneyland is now past the half-way point in a spring construction program that will add 1 1/2 million dollars in new rides and amusements to Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom in Anaheim.
Major areas of activity are Frontierland and the Tom Sawyer Island in the Rivers of America. More than $250,000

Harry and Bess Truman were just another couple of out-of-season tourist here Saturday.
The former president winked cupped his hands and shouted to his wife over the brassy din of a band playing. "I'm Just Wild About Harry":
"Boy, is this plate a rubberneck's paradise."
Then he set

While Disneyland is technically and geographically not even in Los Angeles County, it has been a big part of the L.A. lifestyle dating back to the 1950s. A fine pictorial map created by Sam McKim in 1968 shows the Magic Kingdom during a year when the park as most vintage Angelenos know it was in

This column wasn't supposed to happen. The subject was supposed to be out of the way, and out of my life, last Sunday.
That was before readers started calling: A few even stopped me on the street.
"So how was ... "
The "D" word.
Disneyland. Inevitable.
My wife and I took

When my colleague Denise Goolsby was interviewing a World War II veteran not long ago, she couldn't wait to tell me that his wife, Dorothy Wrigley, had been Walt Disney's secretary for five years during the 1950s. She was there for the development, building and opening of Disneyland - and so much